Page 20 of The House of Hopes and Dreams
‘Oh, yes, there are a lot of framed samplers about and some of them are very old,’ Willow said. ‘Are you saying they’re all yours?’
‘They certainly are, and I have the receipts for most of them to prove it. Julian gave me a few for my birthday and Christmas presents, too, but any gifts made to me are my property. I checked that with Mr Barley.’
Willow, thwarted, abandoned that tack and pointed at the small display cupboard in the corner instead. ‘There’s that whole cabinet of Poole pottery.’
‘Julian and I collected that together from car-boot fairs, because we loved the shapes and colours, but if you feel I might be stealing away with something worth a few pounds, by all means cross it off the list,’ I said, then pushed back my chair with a grating noise and got up.
‘I don’t own anything else of any value, except my antique green jadeearrings and necklace, which Julian also gave me. And if you want those you’ll have to fight me for them after the funeral, because I intend wearing them then – they match my dress.’
‘Green for a funeral?’ Willow said, easily diverted by my fashion faux pas.
‘Green’s a colour Julian loved: the symbol of spring and rebirth and renewal. He hated black.’
I turned for the door and Nat demanded: ‘Where are you going? We haven’t finished going through the list yet!’
‘I suggest you stuff it up a place where the sun don’t shine,’ I said pleasantly, and went out.
I felt in need of a breath of less poisonous air and shrugged into my coat before leaving by the kitchen door. My first thought was to walk round to Molly and Grant’s terraced house, but realized it was quite late and I didn’t want to disturb them.
So instead, I took a walk round the deserted village green and then bypassed the cottage and made myself some coffee in the studio.
I put it on my desk and then opened the cupboard where I kept my sketchbooks – years of them, with the dates they were begun and finished on the spines, going right back to my teenage years. I’d decided to edge the roundel of the angel’s head with an Arts and Crafts-style flower border and I knew I’d once drawn something similar … if I could put my hand on the right book.
I’d left them neatly arrayed in rows in date order, but one glance at the shelves showed me that someone had rummaged through the lot, pulling them out and then leaving them stacked on top of others, or shoved back in any old place.
‘You’d better pack all those up the minute they leave tomorrow,’ said Julian’s voice. ‘Otherwise they’ll insist they belong to the business and could carry on using your ideas after you’ve left.’
‘Yes, I’ll do that,’ I said, then realized I’d spoken the words aloud, because he’d sounded so close, so very, very near …
‘I wish I could take your sketchbooks when I leave, too, Julian – and leave I must. But we’ll make a splendid job of the Gladchester window first.’
‘I should hope so,’ he said, though his voice in my head seemed fainter, as if he were moving away …
Perhaps I was going mad, having these conversations with Julian? But if I was, then it was a comforting kind of madness.
To be honest, the funeral passed by in a blur, interspersed with bizarre vignettes, like Willow attired in dead black from head to foot, a tall, skinny raven of doom.
They went ahead in the big, sleek hearse with the coffin, which I expect was meant as a calculated insult, though I was much happier following in the second car with Molly, Grant and Ivan. That was the complete cortège, though other friends and acquaintances, including Mr Barley, were already waiting at the crematorium. He and the vicar both came to say a few kind words as I got out of the car.
To have the service in the crematorium wassonot what Julian would have wanted, though ironically, the windows were of his making: sunny and hopeful scenes in the Garden of Eden, before the fall.
‘I was never entirely happy about that snake,’ Julian’s amused voice said very faintly. Then I sensed the empty space where he had been and knew he’d left me for ever, a second bereavement.
The vicar’s eulogy, which now included a reference to me as his beloved partner and an anecdote I’d given her that illustrated just how special a person Julian had been, caused Nat and Willow to stiffen and turn as one to glare at me. I expect it was lucky that, unlike a wedding service, there was no point at which a member of the congregation could stand up and object to the proceedings. And by the time we were being wafted out of the building by a booming blast of Britten’sNoye’s Fludde, which certainly hadn’t been Nat’s choice, there was nothing they could do about it.
There was no funeral feast, and Nat and Willow didn’t hang about, but got straight back into the car and left without a word to anyone.
But I lingered, talking to the vicar and some of the guests, so it was a little while before I followed them.
Molly came back with me, to keep me company for a while – or actas a buffer zone between me and the Terrible Two – but we discovered that Nat and Willow had already changed and were stowing their bags in the car ready to make a quick getaway to London.
Nat got into the driver’s seat without a word to us: I expect he was still seething because I’d dared to put my stamp on Julian’s service. Willow lingered long enough to whisper that I’d made Nat very angry.
‘Well, tough titties,’ I said vulgarly, and she looked really shocked, though when you spend your days in an all-male work environment, these turns of phrase tend just to slip out naturally.
‘I’ll let you know if the move is definitely fixed for the third of January once I’ve booked the removal company,’ she said coldly. ‘I’m hoping so, because Nat will want to be here when the workshop reopens on the Monday.’
‘We’ll be counting the days till you get back,’ Molly said.
